Top 10: Will Lance Armstrong confess and join sport’s hall of shame?

Speculation is rife that disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong will confess to doping when he appears on Oprah Winfrey next week. It won’t be the first time a sports star has come clean to scandal and cheating – usually after their guilt has already been established. The list is long and illustrious, or perhaps that should be infamous.

Here, in no particular order, is our top ten from the hall of shame:

TIGER WOODS: Tops the list for the television apology he made after he was exposed as a love rat who cheated on wife Elin with numerous women. Watched by his mother during a lengthy, cringeworthy speech, the world’s greatest golfer promised to ‘start living a life of integrity’. His confession was seen as a damage-limitation exercise after several sponsors withdrew their backing. Nike stood by him, but Woods has still to win a major since returning from self-imposed exile following the scandal.

MARION JONES: Burst into tears on three occasions as she gave her first interview – also to Oprah – after being released from a six-month prison sentence for perjury when she lied to US prosecutors about taking performance-enhancing drugs. Sprinter Jones was stripped of the five gold medals she won at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 after she was revealed to be a drugs cheat.

ROY KEANE: Showed no remorse about being banned for five games and fined £150,000 by the Football Association for admitting in his autobiography he had intended to hurt Alf-Inge Haaland in a Manchester derby. The incident happened four years after the pair clashed when Haaland played for Leeds and accused the United skipper of feigning an injury, which was actually severe ligament damage. Keane wrote: ‘I’d waited long enough. I f****** hit him hard. The ball was there [I think]. “Take that you c***, and don’t ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries”.’

NELSON PIQUET JR: Made written statements to the FIA he deliberately crashed his Renault to help team-mate Fernando Alonso win the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. The ensuing controversy became known as Crashgate and Renault were charged with conspiracy and race-fixing. Team chiefs Flavio Briatore and Pay Symonds were disgraced and left.

ALEX RODRIGUEZ: The New York Yankees slugger, baseball icon and Madonna’s former lover dresses like the boy next door, scratches his ear and shifts uneasily in his chair as he confesses to taking unspecified steroids between 2001 and 2003 when playing for the Texas Rangers. He stretches belief when claiming he doesn’t know what the substances were that he administered to his body.

Naughty boy: A-Rod

DWAIN CHAMBERS: Told the BBC he was ‘in the gutter’ after drugs tests proved he had taken banned steroid THG in 2002. The sprinter was stripped of medals he had won while on drugs and banned from the Olympics, although reinstated for last year’s London Games, and banned from all track meetings for a couple of years. The Londoner tried to carve out a new career in the NFL and rugby league but failed to impress. A stint in reality cooking show Hell’s Kitchen also failed to work out before he returned to athletics.

HANSIE CRONJE: South Africa’s cricket captain was a national hero until he was implicated in a bribery scandal and match-fixing allegations wrecked his career. He tearfully confessed to receiving around £100,000 in bungs – including a payment of £5,000 and a leather jacket from a South African bookmaker to contrive a result in a seemingly dead Test between South Africa and England in January 2000.

ANDRE AGASSI: Tested positive for the highly addictive recreational drug crystal methamphetamine. He duped tennis authorities into believing he had taken it by accident but was happy to reveal the sordid truth, along with the fact he often went commando on court, in his autobiography.

CHRISTOPHE DAUM: The then Bayer Leverkusen coach was poised for the Germany job in 2000 but allegations of cocaine abuse and using prostitutes scuppered his chances. Daum denied the drug claims but hair samples suggested otherwise and he later confessed. In 2009, while in charge of Fenerbahce, Daum told the German press players at the Turkish club had been involved in ‘sex marathons’ with prostitutes at a hotel in Istanbul.

DAVID MILLAR: The last British cyclist to wear the yellow jersey before Bradley Wiggins, Millar was disgraced in 2004 when police discovered used EPO capsules in his French apartment. After a two-year ban he returned to the peloton and became an outspoken anti-doping campaigner. Millar later wrote candidly about his doping past in an acclaimed autobiography.